


Quid Pro Quo; or, Trust No One

by shinobi93



Category: Henry IV - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Explicit Language, M/M, Modern Retelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:57:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prime Minister Henry Bolingbroke has a Cabinet reshuffle and suddenly Hal Monmouth finds himself pushed to the forefront of top tier politics. New advisors to deal with, the government Head of Communications to avoid, and a department nobody's heard of to run: it's not going to be easy, but maybe he's got an ace up his sleeve to show the lot of them what he's really made of.</p><p>Or, Prince Hal deals with that lovely system, democracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notkingyet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notkingyet/gifts).



> For the prompt: "Henry IV I & II/Henry V: Modern politics AU; how does replacing monarchy with democracy change the plays?"
> 
> Takes some liberties with British politics, but for the most part is based on reality. No warnings, except some offensive/explicit language.
> 
> Many, many thanks to the lovely Alice for reading it through and checking that the plot wasn't an incoherent jumble.

Hal Monmouth is standing in the queue in Pret A Manger when he gets the call. It was a difficult decision between a chicken salad sandwich or an overly fancy ham baguette, so he’s not willing to leave his spot now that he’s opted for the grilled chicken with peppery leaves. Fumbling with the sandwich and the berry-based smoothie that promises to revolutionise his life, he nearly cancels the call rather than answers it.

‘Yes?’

‘Hal, they’ve phoned.’ Tom sounds breathless, excited. ‘The PM wants to see you.’

Hal, meanwhile, drops his precious sandwich. This is it. The Cabinet reshuffle is being announced today, and his hope of promotion is shown by the fact that instead of waiting for the call, he went out for a perusal of the high street’s eateries. He is a questionable minister with a questionable life. Young, powered on smiles and promises that sound oh-so-reassuring in his dulcet tones. Style, not substance. It seems that the Prime Minister is willing to take a gamble on him, though. That, or he wanted someone young with a friendly grin to placate the voters when they mess up. It’s not like Henry Bolingbroke himself has the most reassuring of faces.

‘Shit,’ he says finally. The person in front of him in the queue turns round and stares. Hal looks down at the floor, at the sandwich he really ought to leave now so he can go and find out his fate, and wonders if it’s all a joke. He remembers that Tom’s still on the line. ‘When do I need to go?’

‘Soon as possible, Gloucester said.’ 

Hal sighs. ‘No sandwich for me then.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t worry.’ He ends the call and walks out the door, leaving the sandwich on the floor. At least two people glare at him for it. He doesn’t care. The polite etiquette of London professionals is far from his mind. Instead, potential floats before him, the hope of success after all that time at university and the consulting firm and then his move into politics, back at the bottom rung of the ladder, but not really, because he had contacts and a gang of friends from the firm with their own circles of people to schmooze. Part of a set who were young and ready to gamble with their futures.

Hal hails a cab and there he is, on the journey across the Acheron and into the underworld of government. The Cabinet: the top level of government, heads of department wielding actual power, at least to some extent. He considers what position he might be getting if he is, indeed, being called in for a promotion. Could be some new shitty made up department they needed to con some naive tosser into heading, or maybe something like Communities and Local Government, that one never sounded like a real thing to him. London flashes past outside, caught between existing and not, like Hal during the election, uncertain whether it would all be for nothing. Now, he’s more confident. He’s Hal Monmouth, representative of the fucking people, and he’s off to see the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Things are on the rise.

-

‘I’ve got no clue what it entails either,’ Hal says down the phone as he rounds the corner into his new office, on the edge of a huge open-plan workspace full of people pretending to be working, ‘and I’ve been here a week.’ There’s laughter on the other end. ‘Anyway, must dash, tell the rest of the guys I say to make a killing or die trying.’ Hal laughs at his own words and hangs up, the laughter leaving his lips as quickly as the call is ended. It’s important to keep up the old connections.

His two new advisors enter the office together like a bad double act. Edward Poins and John Falstaff. Little and large, young and old, annoyingly attractive and, well, Hal doesn’t even want to think about the latter in those terms. They came with the position like pot plants the old occupant left behind because they didn’t want to be forced to care for them any longer. It was no monumental change. Some guy called Richard was out and Hal was in, head of the Department for Innovation and Skills or, as it is affectionately known, DIS. Hal doesn’t know who’s being affectionate about it, though. The department seems to him to be made of buzzwords like ‘aspiration’, ‘participation’ and ‘creativity’ without any clear purpose.

‘You two, what’s the deal this morning? Do we know yet which skills we want the country to have?’ They both grin at Hal’s joke, although whether this is out of pity, he isn’t sure. ‘Oh, and I’m giving out nicknames. If I shout John, at least three guys on the floor turn around, and Edward sounds too much like royalty. Surnames’ll do.’

Hal had thought about this in the shower that morning. Really, it’s time to show that Hal Monmouth has turned up and people better know it. Plus, there’s just something about saying ‘Poins’ that he likes. Falstaff suits the other guy, too; some bumbling guy in a comedy, it sounds like.

‘Alright, boss,’ says Poins in a mock chirrup, then adds ‘Is that why you don’t go by your full name?’ 

Hal shakes his head. Poins is going to be a problem. The guy is young, possibly a year or two younger than Hal’s twenty-eight, and smart, with sharp eyes and an angled face. Hal’s not sure how a guy like that ended up at DIS, working alongside Falstaff who’s on his nth chance at the politics game. It surely can’t be simple.

Poins takes Hal’s silence as a prompt to answer his own question. ‘I guess you don’t want to be associated with Henry VIII.’

‘Maybe he wants to be Henry the Ninth,’ suggests Falstaff.

‘You can’t be elected to the monarchy, you dick,’ Poins snarls, slightly more aggressive than the morning needed. Nobody seems to have taught the pair the value of professionalism when dealing with colleagues you aren’t keen on.

Falstaff coughs and speaks to Hal. ‘They want you to visit to some college where they learn plumbing, get some nice shots of you amongst the innovation.’

Falstaff’s older, probably in his fifties but he doesn’t seem to have aged well, and Hal’s been hearing rumours about what dodgy stuff the man’s got up to in his time. The department is a joke, like the characters of a feel-good comedy who will eventually all work together to save the day, except there’s little saving DIS can be doing, not unless there’s a problem that can be solved using the vaguely mysterious concepts of ‘innovation’ and ‘skills’ but nothing more.

‘Didn’t we have enough of a photo op when he stood inside that high tech looking building a couple of days ago?’ Poins argues.

‘Apparently not. Apparently those shots of Hal looking bored counteracted the rest of them.’ Hal looks questioningly at Falstaff, whose face twists into a look of confusion, as if he has no idea what Hal’s going to ask about that. Actual words will have to be used.

‘Who’s saying all this? Where’s the “apparently” coming from?’ 

Falstaff goes to answer, but Poins jumps in first.

‘Kate Mortimer, of course.’ Falstaff is scowling, like he wanted to be the one to say those few words. Hal nods, then pauses.

‘When? I’ve not seen her yet.’

‘Phone,’ says Falstaff quickly. ‘She’s only controlling you from afar.’

‘For now,’ adds Poins.

Hal ignores the ominous note in that and looks down at his desk, as if he expects more from it. ‘Anything else?’

‘Well,’ says Poins with a crafty look on his face, ‘somebody, and it might be the person in this room that isn’t you or me, gave out the wrong details about that scheme with the Work and Pensions lot.’

‘And it’ll fall on my head?’

‘Probably. Well, definitely.’

Falstaff, meanwhile, is trying to sneak out of the room, which is going about as well as Henry Bolingbroke’s last media transformation (it had taken all of a day before he’d been accused of a new gaff, discriminating against the Welsh).

‘I’ve got to, erm, go…’

Poins waits until they can no longer hear Falstaff’s footsteps and then turns to look straight at Hal. ‘Hope you didn’t have political ambition.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Hal grins and stands up. ‘I’ll be fine, I’m full of innovation and skills.’

Poins smirks back. ‘That’s a lot of fine.’ He stands there in his cheap suit and Hal can see the gulf between them. It is plain to see that Poins is used to fighting: only a week and he can tell that his two advisors fight because underneath, they are clawing away at the hope of getting one up on the other, securing their job a little further. At least, he thinks, this might make them occasionally do something right, but he’s not too hopeful.

Hal steps forward, the grin still on his lips. ‘Does anything ever go right here?’ he asks, curling his tongue round his words like it’s a accusation. Poins raises his eyebrows.

‘Of course not. Why do you think almost everything we do could be covered by another department?’ They both look at each other, then laugh. A conspiracy of inadequacy. Hal is not surprised. It’s not like he deserved any better department. He’s done nothing special. He goes to step closer, make his dull grey office that bit more exciting, but in that instant, Poins steps back and turns.

‘Best be off, boss. There’s some apprenticeship figures I’m bound to fuck up otherwise.’

‘I’m not really your boss-’ Hal starts to say, but the other guy is gone. The office is laughing at him. A minister with a shithole of a department, so minor that the PM had barely known his name when he’d told him he had the position (in fact, it was Henry’s aide Humphrey Gloucester who’d filled him in, because the PM just didn’t have time for the Department for Innovation and Skills), and soon the papers would start questioning what he did in his spare time. Why no long term relationships? Why no boring-as-fuck fake hobbies to tell the journalists when they ask the nice questions? He’d had no interviews yet; he could only assume that was Kate’s doing. Her power is legendary. He just hoped she was as good as the stories made her out to be. That department needed some bloody decent spin.

-

Hal is jolted out of sleep by the tinkling ringtone of his expensive phone. He was having a lovely dream where he was head of a proper department, and can only assume is being forced out of it by the workings of his actual one.

‘What?’ he says sleepily, blinking his eyes to read the alarm clock. Four a.m.

‘Did I wake you?’ Poins’ voice seems remarkably chipper on the other end of the line. Hal wishes he was there in person so he could hit him for sounding awake at four in the morning. Poins does not wait for Hal’s answer. ‘Listen, there’s been a bit of fuck up. Not with the department as such, but it won’t look great for you, so I thought I’d better call.’

A wealth of scenarios run through his head, but none seem likely: Henry’s revealed that he only accidentally gave him the department; the Richard dude he replaced has made a ten foot effigy of Hal and set it alight on the streets of Westminster; or maybe the press have found out about that time at uni that he jumped onto a table in a restaurant and smashed it in half, and have decided this means he an anti-table bigot. Instead of blurting any of these out, he merely goes ‘What?’ again, like an annoying toy.

‘What you have to understand,’ says Poins, sounding truly like a cowardly government advisor in that moment. ‘is that he likes the odd drink, and this very occasionally makes him a tad of a liability.’

‘Who?’

‘John. Well, Falstaff. Nice touch, by the way. Seems to suit him better somehow.’ Hal sighs.

‘Get on with it.’

‘It seems, last night he went to a pub, nothing spectacular, but he made a few, well, less than acceptable comments quite loudly and, shock horror, the pubs round there have lurking journalists looking for this exact kind of thing, and it’s become news.’

Hal runs a hand through his hair. It’s like he’s been waiting for this. So far, they’ve only had little problems, small and not media-worthy.

‘And it’s being linked to me?’

‘Well, it’s early on, it’s not actually out yet, but I know somebody, and from the gist of what they’re saying, yes. As in, he’s your political advisor, can’t you control him, or something else ridiculous like that.’

If only he could control them, Hal thinks. He’d stop them fighting whenever they’re both in the same room, stop Falstaff stealing all of his pens, and perhaps stop Poins disappearing out of his office so swiftly once they’ve finished discussing whatever they need to. He’s too sleepy to even berate himself for the latter thought, just lies back down with his phone still against one ear.

‘Can you deal with it?’

‘Probably - bit of sweet talking, maybe. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Good.’ Hal closes his eyes. ‘I’ll see you in, I dunno, a couple of fucking hours then.’ He ends the call without looking and drops his phone onto the bed beside him. He’ll worry more in the morning. It’s only when he’s woken up, out of the shower and staring in the bathroom mirror trying to sort out his slightly unruly light hair, that he realises he never asked why Poins was awake and finding out about potential crises at four a.m. Hopefully, he thinks, it was just insomnia.

-

Poins rubs his temples and looks at the screen. The word ‘allegedly’ jumps out at him and he grins in triumph. It’s the best he can do. The story is in dispute, there is no certain source, and Hal was only referred to in one article by name. He leans back in his chair and sticks his feet on the desk. Neither Hal nor Falstaff are in yet, but civil servants are looking at him curiously. He’s not normally in the office early. Edward Poins is not someone they’d say was committed to his job. In fact, he’d hazard a guess that they have no idea what he’d be committed to at all. That’s how he likes it.

He’d come back from an evening out with Doll and some other friends when he’d found out about the Falstaff thing: Doll had rung him, he’d assumed she’d had some problem getting home, but it turned out the problem was his. The Department for Innovative Shit had yet another thing go wrong, and unsurprisingly to Poins, it was to do with John Falstaff. The guy had had too many chances, in his opinion.

‘Good morning, Eddy boy.’ Speak of the devil.

‘Morning, resident fuck up.’

‘Now, that’s not very nice.’

‘You wouldn’t be nice either, if you’d spent most of the early hours of the morning sorting out the shit that comes out of your mouth so the whole department doesn’t get it in the neck,’ he snarls back.

‘You’re young, you don’t sleep anyway.’ Falstaff waves his hand around airily. Poins has been calling the man by his second name, both mentally and verbally, since Hal decided to a couple of weeks ago.

‘Young doesn’t mean a vampire, you idiot. I sleep.’

‘Alone,’ adds Falstaff with glee.

‘As do you,’ counters Poins, but there’s a bitter note in his voice. Luckily, the older guy says nothing in response, just grunts in anger and sits down at his desk. Falstaff doesn’t win many of their sparring matches, not when they’re just throwing random insults at each other. Poins used to be a journalist: he knows how to get at somebody. He’s worked with John Falstaff for a few years now, but even if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t be difficult to work out his weak spots. It’s a handy talent to have.

He hears footsteps and guesses who it is. He’s not wrong. Prophetic Poins.

‘Did you work your magic? I looked around online this morning, it didn’t seem too bad.’ 

Hal is now standing in front of him, looking down at his advisor. Poins feels even shorter than ever. The Secretary of State for Innovation and Skills, as Hal’s official title now reads, has an appearance most other politicians would kill for: the kind that’s difficult to mock in photographs, unless he’s caught with a stupid facial expression or they’re attacking people who seem to spend a bit of time in front of the mirror. Tall, pretty handsome (Poins thinks objectively), able to smile on cue. So far, Poins hasn’t seen much to prove that Hal has much intelligence to go with it, but it’s early days and he doesn’t expect much. Ministers aren’t chosen for something as simple as knowing what they’re talking about.

‘I rang a few people, called in the odd favour,’ Poins says nonchalantly. ‘You’re barely mentioned, our friend Falstaff here’s not a racist bigot. All in all, it’s become more like cheap hearsay than news.’ He shrugs like it was nothing, hoping that his words suggested otherwise. In actuality, he spoke to a few people he used to know, got them to speak to a few others, and bribed a few of Falstaff’s pals because they’re unscrupulous bastards. 

‘You’re a saviour.’ Poins smirks, wondering if everyone gets such enthusiastic compliments.

‘It was nothing, I was already up.’

‘How come?’ probes Hal. He’s clearly trying to be casual, but Poins has seen enough people trying to be casual in his life.

‘Oh, insomnia.’ Hal nods, pauses, then leans forward over the desk towards Poins as if he’s about to impart some great wisdom or share a secret.

‘Celebratory drink tonight?’

Poins’ immediate question is on what level of acquaintance this drink will be, but he does not ask. Most of him is assuming the answer is ‘overly thankful colleague’, perhaps with a dash of ‘new guy is slightly desperate for allies’. A bit of him hopes for something else. Maybe, he thinks, he can make it that way even if it is not. Still, if he fucks up, his job is on the line. It’d be an awkward thing to tell people: ‘why did you go?’, ‘oh, I tried to hit on the minister and he wasn’t interested, so I had to disappear’. Too loud and you’re yet another Whitehall scandal; too quiet and you’re nobody, nothing. He’s not going to do that. Edward Poins isn’t going to be kicked out over a failure. If he’s going, it’s because he did something right and nobody liked it.

‘Sure.’ He shrugs, as if all that hadn’t gone through his mind, then adds ‘Don’t forget you’ve got a cabinet meeting later.’

Hal gives a mock salute and walks off. Across from Poins, Falstaff is looking across at him, with what Poins hopes isn’t too much interest. He doesn’t want his intentions examined. Wanting to shag the guy who is basically your boss isn’t exactly the greatest thing in the workplace, especially not a workplace that’s one of the offices that has some hand in running the country. Kate would have a fit if she knew, he guesses. Still, she’d probably have something to say about him making crises seem worse so he can swoop in and fix them, too.

-

It’s three o’clock when Hal scrambles back into the previous day’s shirt and trousers, trying not to bash his elbow on anything in Poins’ annoyingly small flat. Sirens wail outside, as if to remind him that he’s done something he shouldn’t have. It takes a full ten minutes to find his tie, which he almost gave up on but he is paranoid that somehow, someone will find it and magically know it is his. He knows it would’ve been quicker if Poins hadn’t deigned himself above such activities and lain in bed claiming that he’d barely slept the night before because he was dealing with Hal’s shit, so he’s not running around like a headless chicken looking for a tie that doesn’t matter.

He walks back into the little bedroom and Poins pulls him down by the newly found tie for a kiss about as messy as their situation is right now.

‘About this…’ Hal starts, but Poins puts on that complacent grin of his and cuts him off.

‘Just sex, won’t tell anyone, will sign the official secrets act, et cetera, et cetera.’

‘Under torture, you seduced me.’

‘Shit, I didn’t know the government went in for that sort of thing with its own ministers,’ he says facetiously. 

‘You’re not a minister.’

‘Don’t I know it. Go sleep, so you can wake up and give that talk on widening university  
access. And practice sounding fucking inclusive, less ‘I’m a posh twat who only wants other posh twats to get somewhere in life’.’

‘What about you then?’

‘I have a special pass, you can’t get rid of me.’ He winks and, despite the wall of exhaustion that’s just hit him, Hal laughs. Say what you like about the guy, he thinks as he turns and leaves, say whatever the hell you feel like about how much his apparent efficiency is an act (which Hal has started to get an inkling might indeed be the truth), but he’s not afraid of being a self-confident bastard if it seems it’ll get him something. Hal likes that.

The early morning air is cold and unforgiving, but he manages to summon a taxi fairly quickly and soon is on his way home, trying to focus more on thinking up something to give his speech greater sparkle than the usual string of buzzwords, and less on what it actually felt like to have his junior advisor’s skin pressed against his, doing things in real life that he’d only imagined before whilst half-listening to whatever advice those two were trying to offer him. It’s not like their words are always golden, so he can get away with not quite listening: Falstaff tells him about previous policy and what has been popular before, but is notably silent when Hal calls for fresh ideas, and Poins has a habit of wording things so carefully it usually takes Hal a moment to work out what exactly he is being steered into agreeing with.

He stands on the step outside his front door and looks around at the boring, leafy suburb he lives in. It’s quiet, or as quiet as it gets there. The bland life of a government minister. Tomorrow (or today, he corrects himself) he will probably say something slightly wrong, be berated in the papers and on the blogs, maybe have Kate Mortimer and her pet enforcer Harry Percy finally turn up for a yell, then retreat back to his castle of boring. Appearances must be kept up, after all.

-

‘So lovely to meet you,’ purrs Hal, making his way past the crowd of assembled journalists, shipped-in teenagers and middle-aged bloggers. They’ve just announced some new policy, so of course he’s in full media presence mode and fucking it up royally. Falstaff spent the whole time during Hal’s speech waving his arms as much as the man could without getting out of breath. Already, two of the hacks have accused the policy (something Poins made up a few days ago about tech training for the whole family) as being woolly and pointless, which it clearly is.

Out of the conference room and into the lift. Falstaff tails him, muttering about how everyone hated it. ‘You could’ve tried harder to sound enthusiastic about it. And not gone off on a rant about technophobic people wasting time and resources.’ Hal wants to laugh, because he was including Falstaff in that rant.

‘Well,’ he retorts as the lift pings to tell them they’ve reached their floor, ‘you could’ve done something. Interrupted, started a small fire maybe, but you didn’t.’

‘I don’t know what to do when you’re being a little prick. Everyone hated you.’

‘I thought they only hated the policy.’

‘No, they hated you too, you and your smug smile and your posh hair.’

‘My hair’s not posh,’ Hal protests, but unfortunately they’re back in the DIS offices by now and, as luck would have it, right in front of Poins’ desk.

‘Your hair’s pretty fucking posh,’ Poins says, looking up from his screen where Hal assumes he wasn’t actually working. ‘Why did they hate you?’

In a move that is happening far too often, Falstaff starts talking over Hal’s ‘well…’, his booming voice easily canceling out Hal’s.

‘Because he took any charm he usually has and turned it into boredom and annoyance. Because he doesn’t want to give us an easy day at the office, ever.’

‘Damn, that was a great filler policy as well.’

‘Fuck off was it,’ says Hal, not letting them put all of this on him. ‘No amount of charm could’ve made them like it.’

‘Why did you decide to use it then?’

‘Because you had nothing better,’ taunts Falstaff. Anyone in the office could see the trap he’s just walked into. Even people on the street outside can probably sense it.

‘Oh, and you did? Where’s your super-policy to fly out of the skies and save the day? Oh, that’s right, you’ve been working here since records fucking began and you had nothing better.’

Comfortable that they can argue like this for at least half an hour, Hal slinks off to his office, where no one will attack his hair. Ever since he and Poins went out for that drink that morphed into something else a few weeks ago, he’s sworn that the other guy has started insulting him more at work to make up for it. Pointless overcompensating because unless someone’s been spying on Poins’ shitty little flat for those weeks, they’ll know nothing, but maybe Poins enjoys it. Hal’s starting to get pretty knowledgeable about what a certain advisor of his enjoys. He smirks to himself and lounges back on his chair.

Nobody seems to have worked out yet what he’s up to. It’s so gratifying, having them tell him off for being inept or for going with the bad policies. For being mocked in the papers and laughed at by the Prime Minister and the other top dogs in Number 10 (somehow, they always find out about this; Hal has a theory that Poins talks to Kate Mortimer more than he lets on). Just as long as they keep going in this vein. It can’t get out yet; it’s not time. Totally messing up requires planning.

Every time he finds himself in Poins’ flat, it could be the time that he lets something slip, the time he responds to a playful taunt with a sharp retort that actually, it’s all on purpose. He doesn’t though. He lies and if he starts feeling too close to honesty, he sheds all ministerial persona because it’s Hal Monmouth MP who’s got to be a fuck up, not Hal the guy who can now confess that he hates crisps and only likes 70s rock music because he thinks it’ll make him seem cool. It’s like trading one sort of truthfulness for a pathetic imitation of another. He doesn’t tell Poins about his past, about consultancy or their ridiculous city high-flyers nights out or the string of failed bits of relationships that he can’t even patch together to make a whole. In return, Poins doesn’t tell Hal about himself, so all Hal knows is that he was a journalist, that he worked hard to get there, and a bunch of inconsequential details like the fact that he reads paperback thrillers in his spare time (there’s always one near his bed).

At work, Hal is an incompetent posh boy, given a department for a reason nobody, not even he, understands. At home, he’s a tired government minister, eating ready meals and reminding himself that it all has a purpose. When he sporadically sees old acquaintances, he slips into the version of Hal they knew, putting on a mask like so many other people do, because originality was never his thing. With Poins, he plays the role of someone who is not lonely at all and who just wants to get laid, someone who has to tangle work into this equation by opting for the guy from the office to fulfill this want.

It’s a juggling act, but Hal’s just biding his time. Eventually he’ll rule the world.


	2. Out, you mad-headed ape!

‘What the fuck happened here?’

Oh right, Kate Mortimer’s arrived, Hal thinks as her voice echoes along the corridor like an angry schoolteacher who left the room for a moment and the place turned to shit. He arranges a nonchalant yet busy look upon his face. Since she started gracing the department with her presence a few weeks ago, it’s become a game. Don’t get beaten. He can hear Poins and Falstaff scurrying off out of her path. His lieutenants run off whenever she’s not directly bollocking them. When she is, she calls them Edward and John with a splattering of mockery and asks them if they’re incompetent. There is no correct answer. Falstaff sweats and stammers, Poins shudders but stays silent. Hal shakes his head and quietly is glad. He’s doing it right.

All of a sudden, she’s in the doorway like a apparition. He looks up and hides a grin. She seems pissed off, which is what he likes to see. Not that he dislikes her as a person, but this isn’t personal. Kate, not worthy of one of his surname nicknames due to her role in the government (neither is her underling Harry Percy, despite most others calling him ‘Hotspur’ like he’s a racehorse or a motorbike), is the person with the vaguely suspicious job title, the one with buzzwords like ‘communications’ and the implication of something friendly and open. In actuality, she is the snarling wolf of government. Banging at your door in the dark, telling you in minute detail how you fucked up and demanding you put it right. Twisting your words and actions to suit the message they want to give the country. She has been the cause of at least twenty averted scandals, three firings, six forced resignations and, shockingly, a libel case in which she was the claimant, and now she is standing in the entrance to Hal’s office with narrow eyes and a burnt out fuse.

‘Kate, it’s lovely to see you.’

‘Don’t give me that, Hal. You know why I’m here. Who leaked the fucking statistics?’ she demands. 

He looks up at her in her expensive business suit and wishes for a moment he has an answer, before remembering that he’s not meant to. Kate Mortimer in the flesh sends everyone off-kilter with her vicious smiles. A reporter once called her a ‘dark beauty’ and was out of a job before the end of the day. Her appearance, short curly hair and dark skin and powerful build, is not something she lets anybody claim helps or hindered her. Hal can only assume that people who’ve been openly offensive, made comments based on race or gender maybe, have been ripped apart by sharks in secret. He’s not sure he wants to know.

‘No idea. Someone in this office, I assume, you can’t trust any of them.’ He fumbles purposefully with a pen on his desk.

‘Well, assuming won’t get us anywhere, will it?’ He says nothing. She glares at him. Gunfight at the D.I.S.-fucking-Corral. Hal waits for a moment, then speaks.

‘We’ll look into it.’

Kate taps the floor with her heels and strides towards his desk. She must practice her walk as Hal practises his.

‘Congratulations. “You’ll look into it”. When your little leak finally bursts into a flood and your career goes down the drain, I will stand over your crying body and I will remind you of this day.’

‘Bit too many water metaphors for me,’ he snarks.

‘Sort it out, or the name Hal Monmouth will get its fame for precisely the number of minutes it takes me to kick your political corpse out of the building and onto the nearest Tube.’

Hal can’t help but ask, ‘Why the Tube?’ Her glare gets even more intense. He wonders if it could set fire to the small items on his desk.

‘So you will get as far away from me as possible; namely, the end of the line.’ She marches out of the room. Hal can’t decide how well he did from that encounter. A knock at his door. He hopes it’s not Kate, back to offer another telling off, but it’s not, it’s Helen, a civil servant at DIS with a penchant for being brutally honest.

‘Helen? We need to do something about those failed traineeship statistics, perhaps claim they were fabricated? Can we get away with that? Maybe, I’m sure we’ve not used that excuse since I’ve been here…’

Helen waits until he’s fully trailed off before she starts talking.

‘Kate Mortimer already briefed us, don’t worry. I made calls and John and Edward wrote a statement saying that the statistics were misrepresenting the facts and that people need to refer to some 900-page document if they want the full picture.’

Hal stands, runs his hands through his hair (which Falstaff is still insisting is too posh, although Hal refuses to do anything about this) and realises that he did, indeed, lose this round with Kate. She’d already fucking sorted out the problem when she yelled at him; she knows he won’t find out who the leak is. It’s a fact of government, same as it’s a fact of government that Kate’s job exists at all. Nobody calls her a ‘spin doctor’ within her earshot, but it is fairly accurate. Her Rottweiler Harry Percy is a ‘press officer’, which sounds vaguely sinister to Hal, like he’s there to enforce the right media coverage using any means necessary.

‘Good, good. Glad to hear the department’s on top of it,’ he says through gritted teeth. Helen goes to leave, then turns around.

‘Oh, Hal? That suit. It’s...not great. You might want to change it before your next public appearance.’

She disappears, leaving Hal to awkwardly attempt to judge his own outfit without a mirror. It’s just a suit with a deep burgundy tie. Maybe he’s spilt something down it, he wonders, but he can’t see anything even when he contorts his neck into weird positions. He’s about to call it a day and go check if the statistics thing is truly swept under the carpet when there’s another knock at his door, which is open this time.

‘Come in,’ he calls out, then continues talking about Poins walks in. ‘It’s so busy in here this morning, it’s like King’s fucking Cross. If people didn’t insist on leaking shit they shouldn’t have their hands on, maybe I’d get some peace every once in a while.’

‘You’re the head of a government department, what did you expect? The country’s innovation and skills rest on your shoulders, there’s no time for a quiet morning.’ Hal double checks that there’s nobody just outside the door before he retorts.

‘Oh, so I don’t have time for turning up at yours tonight then? Because the skills are at stake?’

Poins grins. ‘No, I think we utilise our skills very well, in fact I’d say we’re a good example to the country and must continue as we are.’

‘I’ll put that in my next speech.’

Poins leans across the desk dividing the space between them, balancing on the fine line between inappropriate and appropriate if anybody walked in. ‘I can see the papers now. “Minister says sex life demonstrates innovation of country”: I’m sure Doll would write it if she got the chance.’

Hal’s heard a couple of references to Doll now, but he’s never met her. They don’t do things like that. They’re not together. He can piece together information from the time he spends in Poins’ flat and the comments they make to each other, but he can’t seem to be taking an interest. He has other interests to put before Poins, because he did not get to this point, did not work hard to become such an inept politician, to throw it all away because he likes being with the guy who is just a casual distraction from a stressful life.

‘Oh, and Poins?’ Hal asks as the other guy moves towards the door. Poins looks up.

‘Yes?’

‘Does this suit look alright?’ Poins gives it a moment, in which Hal feels like he’s being judged for every aspect of his appearance. He shouldn’t have asked. It is technically part of Poins’ job, it’s advice after all, but it somehow feels wrong, like he’s asking the guy for an opinion on Hal himself. Hal doesn’t want to know that.

‘Yeah, it’s fine, why?’

‘No reason. Just wondered.’

Poins walks to the door, but instead of leaving straight away, spins on his heel and smirks ‘Nice tie’ before finally going.

-

Poins rolls over and smacks his digital alarm clock into submission. It is a reminder that he is not only a professional with a suit - indeed, multiple suits - but also a professional who will be late for work if he doesn’t get out of bed. Gone are the days of journalism and erratic hours that he could usually justify with some excuse or story. Even further gone are the days of being awoken at half seven by his cousin leaving for work, jolting up on the sofa with a crick in his neck and swearing before slumping back down defeatedly, his attempts at moving almost as good as his job prospects. He got there, though. He’s gone a long way since then. So far, indeed, that the government minister that rolls over next to him and groans.

‘Why did we agree that I go in first?’ Hal complains, pulling himself up into a sitting position. Poins stares at him, at Hal’s pale skin in contrast to the navy duvet cover he bought because it was the first one he saw and he didn’t want to spend unnecessary time in the linen department. He has never seen Hal’s bed linen; the detail is stupid, he thinks immediately. 

Hal’s gone now, off to the shower and the line of spare suits, much nicer than Poins’, that he wordlessly moved into the wardrobe a few weeks ago so they could do this: act like it wasn’t a secret thing, a temporary thing. Poins does not mind the suits. They are echoes of Hal, claims to the man when he is not around, hints of a public figure who must be built from the inside out. Representative of the people. Hal is not representative of that grey mass he sees every day. Just another reason people think politics is a joke, he supposes. As Poins sees it, Hal is posh, selfish and somehow intriguing. It’s clear that he doesn’t match up to the image he projects, but Poins has not yet worked out what is beneath that exterior.

Hal leaves the shower and Poins goes in, glancing at the steam and the proof of a second presence in the flat that’s strange to see. By the time he comes through into the kitchen with a half-buttoned shirt, Hal is almost ready to leave, a piece of toast in hand. The other guy pushes a mug of coffee along the work surface to Poins, who finds this impressive because Hal doesn’t drink the stuff and has undoubtably had a cup of one of the strange kinds of tea that also appeared in the cupboard around the same time as the suits. He tried one once, when Hal wasn’t around, and it tasted like drinking leaves.

‘What time’s she coming?’ Hal asks once Poins has muttered his thanks.

‘As I said before, ten thirty.’

‘Right, fine.’ Hal brushes crumbs off his hands as if to leave, then stops again. ‘And she’ll cooperate?’

‘If you stop wording it like some spy drama, yes,’ Poins says, wondering how much Hal knows about how the press actually works. Doll is coming in to do an interview, get some kind of fake scoop on new policies and old excuses, but mostly to clear Hal’s name and the department’s name from a pile of recent mishaps. ‘She’s my friend and she’s willing to do us a favour.’

He doesn’t elaborate any further. Hal seems placated at least. ‘See you soon, then,’ he says as he leaves, still sounding a bit awkward. Poins doesn’t know what they’re doing. They are playing parts that don’t quite make sense. It is as if they merged into being in a relationship without either of them actually deciding to or agreeing upon it, skipped some of the chapters and went straight to the middle without knowing how the transition happened. They don’t know about each other, not about their lives and their pasts and that shit, but they know enough. Enough that sometimes Hal can stay over and know what hot drink to make Poins in the morning, but not enough that he knows what’s running through the mind of the minister who is clearly too clever to be messing up quite this much, unless Poins is simply overestimating him. He hopes he isn’t. He doesn’t really want to find out that Hal really is just a shitty MP who wanted an easy fuck. It’d be a letdown, but at the same time, he finds it annoyingly likely.

-

‘Hello,’ smiles Hal at the newcomer, a woman with blonde hair and a cheap yet smart skirt. He can recognise these things. His own suit today is grey, serious yet stylish. ‘You must be Doll.’

‘And you must be Hal Monmouth,’ she retorts, following him into the small conference room. ‘Ed told me you’d be like this,’ she adds.

Hal jumps at the name, the first time he’s ever heard anyone call Poins something that isn’t Edward or his own nickname for the guy. An old friend, Poins had said, but he hadn’t elaborated. Hal forces down the jealousy that suddenly sparks in his gut, because he’s here for a purpose and anyway, he has no right being jealous.

‘Like what?’ he says, back on track.

‘All flashy smiles and charm. Apparently that’s what you do, regardless of all the mishaps.’ Hal shakes his head in mock despair and wonders how much he can subtly get out of Doll about what else Poins says about him.

The interview passes quickly. Hal has quite suitably wrapped it up, giving out the required excuses and offering some mundane comments about what he enjoys in his spare time to stop people questioning if he secretly likes torturing babies or something, when his stumble occurs.

‘Right, well that’s that then,’ says Doll, looking pleased with herself. She stands to leave. ‘You should get Ed to invite you when we go down the pub sometime, if you want to seem friendly or, I don’t know, you actually want company.’

Hal doesn’t question the pity invite, doesn’t even consider that Doll probably has some ulterior, journalistic motive. He skips straight to the pratfall, and not even the pratfall he might have wanted to get trapped in.

‘We don’t do going out places,’ he says, then his voice catches in his throat as he realises what he said. Doll is looking at him, eyes wider than before. ‘Because we’re colleagues,’ he amends, but he can see from her face that she’s not fooled. She saw he messed up. She saw because that is what her job relies on. Doll says nothing, just smirks and walks out.

Hal rubs his fingers nervously against his palms. It wasn’t the exposé he was going for. Before, a month or so ago, maybe he wouldn’t have minded: it is a pretty good companion story to the main event, the fact that the inept minister is secretly shagging his advisor, something to flesh out his misdemeanors in the politics section. Now, however, he’s not so sure he wants it out there. There’s a nagging feeling in his head that it’s not quite what it seems and perhaps not something he wants the public to know about. Less sideline scandal and more real piece of his personal life that he’s not quite certain about. Well, he tells himself, he’ll have to do something about it.

Eventually, he leaves the conference room and strides over to Poins’ desk. ‘Need you in my office, now.’

‘Did it go alright with Doll?’ Poins calls out, trying to keep up with Hal’s pace. Hal waits until they’re both inside and shuts the door.

‘How much does she like you?’ Hal asks.

‘What?’

‘How much does she like you? What sway do you have? Will she listen if you request something?’

‘Hal, what’s happened?’ Poins looks concerned, whether for Hal or for his career, Hal doesn’t know. He breathes deeply, trying to sound less frantic. It’s difficult; he’s meant to be running this show.

‘The interview went fine, it was all fine, then she make some comment and I said- I said something that suggested we were, y’know, sleeping together…’

Poins looks panicked for a moment, then visibly relaxes. Hal wonders what this big solution he must be about to offer will be. ‘Don’t worry, she won’t write that.’

‘She’s a journalist, of course she will.’

‘So was I,’ Poins says forcefully. ‘And she’s my friend. I can tell you now, she won’t include it.’

‘You can’t be sure. She won’t be loyal to you, not when she can advance her career like this.’ He sees Poins recoil and wishes he hadn’t mentioned the loyalty thing.

‘You’re wrong. You’re so fucking wrong. It wasn’t a favour at all, she wanted the fucking interview and that was the angle she wanted. Look at the other side of the fuck up coin. She doesn’t need the extra stuff. I’ll talk to her, but she won’t write about it. We’ve had each others’ backs before.’

Hal glares at him, at his stupid certainty and his faith in the woman Hal doesn’t trust. He doesn’t trust journalists at all, except for one thing. You can trust that they’ll screw you over for a good story.

-

The café is buzzing with lunchtime customers, but Poins finds Doll easily enough, sitting at a table in the corner with a coffee and a wrap.

‘What’s the deal?’ she asks as he sits down.

‘Hal’s panicking ‘cause he apparently said something to you he shouldn’t have, so I’ve just come to…’

‘See what I’m planning to write. You mean about you and him. Oh hun, I’d worked that out already - I can read you like a book- but I can’t use it, I have no real proof and besides, it wouldn’t be nice to you, would it? You’d be screwed, not just literally, as it stands at the moment.’ Forgetting the situation, he sniggers along with her.

‘You’ve got enough from the interview, though?’

‘Oh yes, it’ll work fine, especially alongside the figures that were leaked this morning. Don’t you worry about me. Go check on your minister, make sure he’s not turned it into the Department for Innovation and Breakdowns about Your Not-So-Secret Sex Life.’

When Poins returns, however, Hal is marching around with his usual smile on his face whilst Falstaff tails after him detailing policy ideas that might be useful in the next fortnight. The storm seems to have been averted. He wasn’t sure if it would be, because he could see the mistrust in Hal’s eyes. Hal knows little about him and nothing about Doll. There was no reason for him to believe that Doll wouldn’t reveal what she apparently already knew, but Poins knows about her, has turned up at three in the morning when a scumbag boyfriend has left her or when what she thought was the scoop of her career has turned out to be a huge pile of nothing. They’ve stayed up all night chasing stories, writing words that’ll amount to little, searching out that hint of success. Doll knows him, and Doll would know not to do something to jeopardise his job, to put him back where he was when he turned up in London years ago with a degree in journalism and a cousin who luckily had a sofa.

Besides, he has another reason to trust Doll. He feeds her the information that the department wants out there, not as openly as that of course, and in return he appears to be her spy, her man on the inside. Hal, unaware of how they deal with that stuff, must assume one of them has some sort of contact, maybe calls Kate or Hotspur, but Poins doesn’t need to bother with that. They can get favours and decent press coverage from Doll because she gets something in return. That’s how things work around there: _quid pro quo_.


	3. Enamoured on his follies

When Hal gets a furious phone call from Kate Mortimer on a Monday morning a couple of weeks after the interview, his first thought is that Doll has finally run the story. Poins has been claiming that she won’t, but Hal can see some reserve, something Poins won’t tell him. His heart pounds and he waits for the accusation that he’s been getting a bit too close to his advisor. Falstaff’ll have a field day, Hal thinks, he can mock both of them at once, and that’s not even starting on what the papers might say. He’s so busy thinking of this he barely notices when the insults begin.

‘You’re so fucking useless I could replace you with a stuffed rabbit and the country wouldn’t know the difference.’

‘What have I done?’ Hal asks, because apparently he’s so useless he doesn’t even know what the crisis is. He can imagine her glaring at her phone in lieu of him actually being in front of her.

‘Do you not pay attention? It’s been leaked that your sorry excuse for a government department has been paid off by god knows how many companies to back certain work placement schemes over others. There’s a fucking list of everyone who’s approached DIS about it, full of information that neither you nor they want released. Funnily enough, people are saying you’re corrupt.’ Hal sighs in relief and exhaustion, but unfortunately Kate hears it down the line. ‘You think this is fine? You won’t think it is when it’s your job they’re after, saying you’re not fit to be in politics.’

‘What do you want me to do, then?’ he says diplomatically, waiting for Kate’s miracle plan. He wants to panic, he really does, but he’s too busy being glad it’s not the him and Poins story. Every day that passes, he wants that to get out less and less.

‘I have meetings with the PM all day, so I want to send Harry over to bash your head in, but as that’s apparently not allowed, I’ll accept him coming over to babysit you and make sure you don’t do anything stuff whilst we sort this thing out.’

Translation: she doesn’t have a plan. Less than reassuring in Hal’s eyes. He can’t actually be so bad that he’s simply kicked out; that’s not the game.

He steps out into the main DIS office and yells ‘Harry Percy’s coming over’ which what he hopes is a tone suggestive of threat. It’s unnecessary though, because the name alone is enough. If Kate is the brains of the government’s media presence, Harry is its brawn. He is thick set, with small eyes and a smile that’d look nice if it wasn’t usually twisted into one of glee at impending violence. He wears his northern accent like a badge of pride in the offices dominated by southerners and the first time Hal met him, only a month or so ago, he introduced himself by asking if Hal was ‘the new posh fucker who shouldn’t be given an egg to look after, never mind a government department’. His job title says ‘senior press officer’, which makes Hal wonder who he killed to get past being junior.

‘What if we laid traps so he couldn’t get in?’ suggests Falstaff, just as Harry himself walks in.

‘Shit, that was quick,’ mutters Hal, then raises his voice. ‘Can you teleport?’

Harry Percy grins, just as malevolent as Hal remembers. ‘No, I’m just not a lazy slacker like you lot.’

This is the best way to catch him: nastily jovial, rather than furious. His temper is whispered about across the departments, as someone who hits first and considers if you quite deserved it afterwards. It is assumed that this is where the ‘Hotspur’ nickname came from, but nobody dares ask.

‘Now, Kate said you’ve no idea what you’re doing, is that right? You two,’ He turns and looks at Poins and Falstaff in turn, ‘have you been advising him? Don’t take any more bribes, consider a career working at Tesco, that sort of thing?’

‘He’s too posh for Tesco,’ snarks Poins, who’s been strangely quiet so far. Harry Percy looks torn between glaring and laughing.

‘Can we quit working out whether I’m suited for a life selling groceries and sort out the problem in hand?’ Hal says, although he’s not expecting much from them. Things aren’t looking great. Although the leak was too late for the papers, it’s online now (he checked once he got off the phone with Kate), and they aren’t talking nicely about him. They’re saying his whole department’s corrupt, that he only got the position in the first place through bribery, and that given the chance, Hal Monmouth would sell off half the government to fat cat businessmen who want to protect their own interests, betraying anyone who got in his way. It’s creative, he’ll give them that, but it seems to be shifting worryingly close to a dead end with no turning space.

‘Oi, you fucking idiot,’ yells Harry, ‘that’s what I’m trying to do, sort this shit out, but this department is as useless as the papers are making it out to be. Did they pick the people with the least fucking skills in the world to run it?’

‘Yes, yes, we know the skills jokes,’ Falstaff says, the slightly worried look on his face the only giveaway that shit’s gone down at DIS. Hal wonders if the apocalypse could happen and John Falstaff would still be lounging around, looking for the stash of biscuits. ‘We even make them ourselves sometimes.’

‘Shut up, you washed up waste of space, or I’ll just leave and let Kate fire the whole lot of you once she’s free. Hal, what are you doing?’

Hal freezes, despite the fact he was just standing waiting for his fate to be proclaimed.

‘Nothing?’

‘That’s the fucking problem. Do something. Work out what to say when the journalists come a-calling, make sure it isn’t “well, we didn’t mean to be shady as fuck, we were just a bit strapped for cash”. You two, find out what happened, check what the data trail on this actually is. Heaven forbid I ask, but did you actually do it?’

Hal gulps. ‘No.’

‘So where did this list come from then? The easter bunny?’

‘I don’t know, somebody made it up, something-’ He is cut off by the angry northerner.

‘Bang, time’s up, your career’s over if you answer like that. This thing’s got a legit source, apparently, so none of the “it was invented” bullshit,’ snarls Harry. 

For a moment, Hal muses over whether he can get a bill through parliament to stop annoying dicks like Percy having the same first name as him, before remembering his popularity isn’t at its best so it’s unlikely.

‘Fine, I’ll have a little think, see if I can remember where it came from,’ he retorts sarcastically, pleased at the fury in Harry Percy’s eyes. ‘Poins, need you in my office, for some of your classic advice.’

Poins grins triumphantly at Falstaff. ‘Have fun out here with Doctor Death.’

‘I’ll sure you’ll have fun of your own,’ says Falstaff. Hal can’t tell if there’s meaning hidden under that, but there’s not time, because there’s other fish to fry. Fish made of bribery allegations, which are not something to be taken lightly. The last cash scandal he can think of, some backbencher called Edmund Owen who sold off government insights or something, did not end well: splashed across the papers, the tabloids searching out every snippet of interesting information on him to make their double page spreads as malicious as possible. No time for dignified resignation; Owen was sacked, investigated and thrown out on the streets with nothing but a reputation and a load of legal fees to pay. Hal shivers at the thought.

Inside his office, he shuts the door and lets out the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.

‘Shit,’ mutters Poins helpfully, starting to pace. ‘What do we do?’

‘I was hoping you’d have something better than that. We need some excuse. You know what’ll happen if they get too into this.’

Poins nods. ‘They’ll dig, and eventually someone will find out about us.’

‘If Doll doesn’t publish it the second she hears this story, that is.’

‘I trust her: she won’t.’

‘You’d better hope so. In the meantime, we need to fucking kill this story. What can we do?’ Hal pauses. ‘What about Falstaff?’

‘What about him?’ says Poins innocently, but Hal can see the cogs working behind his eyes.

‘I mean, he’s been through the scandal mill before, he must know how to land on his feet, right? This last one might be the political death of him, but you have to make sacrifices…’

‘You can’t.’

‘Oh, don’t get all moral on me, you know it’s sink or swim in this game. We’re young, we can’t go.’

His advisor shakes his head. ‘No, I mean you can’t, because the stuff mentions meetings with the secretary of state. No dates or anything, but the whole idea is clearly not the working of one person, certainly not John.’

‘Shit, that’s scuppered, then. You sure you’ve got nothing?’

‘Nothing at all. Can’t have a friendly interview without an actual excuse.’

‘There’ll be something. There always is.’ Hal’s brain is already formulating other plans, but he wants to play them a bit closer to the chest. It’s a delicate situation.

‘There will be a weak link. You know what it’s like: _quid pro quo_ , or, trust no one.’

‘That’s not what it means,’ argues Hal, wondering if Poins is reverting to journalistic clichés in a time of panic.

‘Doesn’t matter: the point is, either you make a mutually beneficial agreement, or you watch out for backstabbing. Cut a deal or betray someone.’

‘ _Quid pro quo_ , or trust no one. I like it. You should be a journalist,’ Hal grins, and the seriousness is over.

They test the soundproofing ability of Hal’s office (it’s really not the time, a voice in his head says, but he ignores it, as he often does) and then Hal gets down to fielding calls, plotting escapes and dealing with Harry Percy, who stays prowling the office all day, yelling at people unnecessarily whenever he hasn’t said anything in a while. It’s not until Hal’s in the ministerial car on the way home, a solution still not found and the threat of Kate Mortimer’s presence the following day hanging over his head, that he plays back his conversation with Poins and wonders if it meant a little more than a neat way of summarising the political game they play.

He can’t help but think of his and Poins’ arrangement, for want of a better word. Hal doesn’t quite trust Poins, but the guy would be the first choice for his side, should people be picking them. The person he is accidentally selling a bit of his life to, moving clothes and remembering preferences under the simple cover of sex. Either it is mutually beneficial or, eventually, the maxim ‘trust no one’ might be more relevant. You have to get pretty close to someone to stab them in the back, it is well known. Hal only hopes Poins’ words weren’t a personal warning: pick the latin, or watch out.

-

Two days later, Poins is starting to wonder whether Hal will weather the storm. Even Kate Mortimer hasn’t solved the crisis yet, not even after she let slip a few low level secrets about ministers to try and distract the press. Hal made a statement about how they’re looking into the issue before coming to any conclusion, but the hounds are still baying at his heels. Poins has counted eight different print speculation-based special features and hasn’t dared dig too deep on the internet.

The problem is, everyone’s making it seem huge. Either Kate or Harry Percy seem to be around constantly, shouting at anyone who doesn’t at least pretend to be doing something useful towards dealing with the situation. Poins isn’t quite sure what they’re expecting: maybe someone to magically remember there’s a secret document that proves that no, that other list was a lie, and here’s some actual proof. Kate, for all her prowess, spins out of control a bit when she doesn’t have a quick solution. It’s tense, with the question on everybody’s lips: someone’s going to have to be blamed, surely, but who?

He walks into the pub, in desperate need of a drink. The place is busy for a Wednesday night so he’s glad he came early; by the time Doll and the rest of the usual crew arrive, he hopes to have spotted and grabbed a free table. He likes the pub, The Boar’s Head, because it balances the line between posh and dangerous quite nicely, plus as a bonus John Falstaff doesn’t frequent it.

At the bar, he grunts ‘Alright?’ at Mrs Quickly, the landlady, who knows him by sight and possibly by name, he can never be sure. She’s busy with other customers and doesn’t serve him for a few minutes, in which time he stares at the selection of spirits on offer and wonders which would best help him forget the pain known as a corruption scandal rocking your department, and not rocking in the positive sense.

‘What’d you like, Edward?’ she asks finally, solving the mystery of if she knows his name.

‘Double scotch, cheapest you got,’ he replies, because drinking out is not good for the wallet. If only Hal was around, he thinks, he could convince the rich bastard to buy a round or two. Sparked by this thought, he gets out his phone and sends a text to the man himself, a slightly risky one claiming that if they always go to Poins’ flat, Hal owes him a drink at the least. He doesn’t mention that Doll or the other journos will be there, but still, he’s not hopeful Hal will turn up.

‘Here you go,’ she says, and watches as he takes a huge gulp. Poins looks up at her questioning gaze.

‘Bad day at work. Bad week, even,’ he says in explanation. She nods.

‘Here to take your mind off it?’

‘Yeah, once my friends turn up.’ He pauses and she goes off to serve some hulking guys in rugby shirts. Poins wonders if the bartender stereotype works for the landlady of your favourite pub. Probably, he thinks, then downs the rest of the scotch in his glass.

‘Another?’ asks Mrs Quickly, sympathy evident in her tone.

‘Yeah, thanks,’ he says, then continues. ‘It’s not just that. It’s complicated. Work, and the rest of my life.’ She doesn’t know what he does so this means nothing to her, he reasons. ‘You see, me and my boss…’ He hates calling Hal his boss, but to say “I’m his advisor” puts it rather too close to being given away what he does. The pause gives away his meaning and he can see comprehension on the landlady’s face.

‘And that’s the trouble at work?’

‘No, no, there’s something else, something bigger than that, but it’s...difficult. I mean, this thing, it wasn’t meant to be anything proper, it would’ve been alright if it had got out, not great but not awful, it would’ve just ended and that would have been alright, but now…’ He drinks from the newly refilled glass. ‘I don’t know. For him it’s probably still nothing, but for me…’ Her eyes widen at the ‘him’ but quickly return to normal. ‘I’ve not done the love life thing much, I was too busy trying to make enough money, and then, y’know, it was easier to just keep doing the casual sex thing rather than take the time for anything else…’

‘Sweetie, I’ve got to go serve people,’ Mrs Quickly cuts him off, and Poins shakes his head slightly, wondering what has suddenly got into him. Alcohol confession time isn’t usually for him. He berates himself for falling into the trap so easily and hopes that a couple of double scotches isn’t now enough to make him spill his problems.

‘Ed!’ Doll’s voice carries through the loud pub, and he murmurs a ‘thank god’. He doesn’t want to find out what he would’ve started going on about next. Luckily, Mrs Quickly knows little but his first name and the faces of his usual companions, so she’s unlikely to tell anyone.

‘How are you guys?’ he says in greeting to assorted friends from his journalism days, his usual drinking crowd. Poins likes these people, not part of the crew of slick bastards he now works with but more desperate, hungry for success rather than ruining what success they do have.

They loiter by the bar, Doll coordinating which drinks everybody wants. Poins keeps quiet about the two he’s already had, doesn’t want to be interrogated by people who ask questions for a living. The only reason they’re not all asking about the DIS cock-up is that they promised when he got the job that they wouldn’t harass him for information, not unless he offered it. He drinks a single scotch and chats aimlessly, savouring the distraction. After a while, they even grab a spare table, Poins feeling guilty because that was what he was planning on doing before they got there.

About half an hour later, Doll hisses at him ‘it’s Hal’ and he spins around on his chair, having lost any belief that Hal would turn up. Hal glides over, usual work attire traded for a not particularly casual shirt and jeans, and grins that trademark smile.

‘So, this is what you get up to outside of work.’

Doll laughs at his, whilst Poins smiles back and does introductions, with a bunch of people who know exactly who Hal is and aren’t quite sure why he’s been invited, Poins assumes, unless they think he’s trying to suck up to the minister or has taken pity on him. It gets better after that though, perhaps because Hal buys a round of drinks and doesn’t talk to them too much. Poins concentrates on trying not to reveal to Hal how drunk he’s getting (another double scotch as Hal was paying), which fails when he leans over and whispers in Hal’s ear ‘Fuck, I’ve already had a couple of these’. Then, as Hal smirks back at him and tells him that it was quite obvious, Poins turns his gaze and sees Mrs Quickly staring over at him. He blinks, not even certain that she was looking at him, and turns back to Hal, who’s drinking a bottle of beer in a way which makes Poins watch intently. She was probably just looking round the pub, he tells himself, like landladies do.

Later, once last orders have been called and Doll has loudly told Hal she’s pleased he took her up on her offer, Poins is glad Hal is perfectly sober and thus able to casually lie about where he lives so his going back with Poins doesn’t look suspicious at all. It’s good none of his friends work in political journalism except Doll, or there’s the odd chance they might actually know where Hal lives. As it is, they just all say goodnight and Poins focuses on not saying anything stupid to Hal until tipsy has transitioned back into mostly sober. No more confessions tonight. Their jobs are still on the line, after all.

-

Hal stares up at the ceiling of Poins’ bedroom and thinks once again, has he waited long enough yet? Let the crisis blossom into something memorable, to the point where everyone is really desperate. Yes, he knows, he has. It’s time to start on the solution. The clock might be glaring through the darkness, telling him that it’s half three and that it’s bad form to get up at such a time in someone else’s home to plot your political saving grace, but he doesn’t care. Carefully he slips out of the bed, the double bed that Hal’s sure is slightly smaller than it should be, and checks that he hasn’t woken his sleeping advisor, who is likely to have a headache when he wakes up. Hal’s not entirely sure why Poins decided to go down the successive scotches route last night, but it makes him slightly suspicious that there’s something the guy has to be guilty about. Still, he doesn’t regret answering the text with his presence in the pub; as he tells himself, he needed the distraction.

The kettle’s on, the tea’s being made, and it’s time to get to business and sort this shit out. He’s grateful at that moment that Poins spends most of his earnings on this flat, this unshared, single bedroom flat that means Hal has no chance of being spied upon by some unknowing flatmate who’ll then sell their story to the papers for a bit of cash. Draft the statement, write the speech, rule the world. The kettle clicks. This is what Hal’s being waiting for.

-

The text runs along the bottom of the screen, white letters on red: Hal Monmouth speaks out about corruption allegations - “It was all my predecessor”. Hal himself, watching the screen, wonders how they’re getting away with those quotation marks, seeing as those weren’t his exact words. It is true that he heaped the blame for the accepting bribes from assorted companies upon Richard, his unlucky predecessor, but he also apportioned blame to others in his department and the culture of bribery which, so he claimed, mutters at the edges of Westminster like the snake in Eden.

His own face graces the screen, as he talks about the investigation that occurred over the previous few days that delayed any real official response from the Department for Innovation and Skills until they were certain of the facts. The news report cuts to a commentator talking about the need for care in precarious situations like these. Hal smirks and looks around at the assembled employees of DIS. The TV has been carted into the office from the storage room for this moment, the media verdict regarding Hal’s swoop to save the day, and everyone is gathered round, making sure to watch screen Hal rather than real Hal. Those present have been saved; the minor departmental people whose jobs were sneakily taken from them to save the rest have left already, amid a storm of yells and thrown stationery. Hal did not tell them himself, but left his advisors to the task, claiming he had to deal with the press. No one can argue with him today.

Nobody can leave either, because they are waiting for Kate Mortimer. She has not visited yet, but growled threats down the phone that if any employee left before she turned up, they’d be chucked out and added to the list of casualties that the corruption scandal has created. Every time she’s rung Hal today, he has fought back and twice hung up because he had other things to do, people to call and feathers to smooth. He smiles at the memory as the screen flicks back to his face, showing his final, assertive denial of knowing anything about the whole thing until it was leaked. His expression looks easy, relaxed; it took an hour of practising beforehand to ensure this.

‘Well, you did it,’ Poins says to him. Hal can’t parse the other guy’s facial expression properly, but his tone sounds observational, like what Hal did was pass a biscuit or make it up the stairs. It is representative of how everyone’s been treating him all day: uncertain, false nonchalance mixed with relief and mistrust. Their safety comes at a price.

‘For now,’ adds Falstaff from nearby, perhaps bitterly but not harshly. The man’s probably envious that he didn’t find the solution, Hal reasons.

They stand around awkwardly, waiting for the queen of spin. When she arrives, she has her media entourage in tow: Harry Percy and some others, her handpicked soldiers in the war on press coverage. There’s a glint in her eye that Hal knows means that now she has something to work with.

‘Alright, you lot,’ calls out Kate, with the voice that could probably make you sell out your granny if it seemed useful, ‘nobody leaves until my team have corroborated Hal’s statements against what proof we have and tactfully dealt with anything that doesn’t fit. You’d better all forget anything that you’re not meant to know, or you’ll be out of a job quicker than the PM shuts up if you ask him if he screwed anyone over to get the leadership. Is that clear?’

Everyone nods, except Hal who’s riding too high to listen to the threats of Kate Mortimer. Maybe they don’t appreciate him yet, he thinks, but they will, they’ll see he’s proved his worth.

-

‘Isn’t it amazing, what he’s done?’ enthuses some minion of Kate Mortimer’s, watching over Poins’ shoulder as he goes through the records of past meetings to check if any of the companies mentioned on that list come up. Poins knows he could do this all a lot quicker without the press office lackey, but Kate was very certain: her people are involved. Damn power struggle wasting his time.

‘Amazing,’ Poins echoes. Almost too good to be true, he thinks. One minute, nothing; the next, a whole plan of action. ‘You probably shouldn’t let Kate hear you say that, though.’

Poins isn’t joking. They’ve been here two hours now and she’s been angry for the whole of it, which he can only put down to annoyance at Hal’s saving the day. To top it off, her and Hal keep giving people opposing demands and causing chaos, which has ended up with at least three people close to tears and Falstaff wandering round the office looking even more pathetic than usual.

Poins’ new hanger-on goes quiet for a bit, then pipes up again. ‘How d’you think he thought it up? The blaming Richard thing?’

The ABC of political manoeuvres, Poins wants to say, or failing that, he had a moment of clarity whilst we were fucking.

‘What’s your name?’ he asks instead.

‘Rich, Rich Vernon.’ 

Shit, everyone really does have the same few first names, Poins thinks.

‘New?’ Rich nods. ‘Well, Rich, if I were you, I’d learn to play my cards a little bit closer to my chest, maybe stop going on about someone my boss doesn’t seem all that pleased with right now.’ The guy looks at him, somewhat wounded. ‘It’s not personal, this game ain’t personal, but what you’ve gotta realise is that none of this is how it looks. Everyone’s playing a long game, lying, cheating, whatever they can. And, well, you’re right on track to having Kate or Harry throw something at your head.’

‘I- I didn’t realise,’ stammers Rich Vernon the Hal fanboy.

‘You do now. Oh, and please fuck off, I really can’t work with you staring over my shoulder.’ Rich sidles off and Poins chuckles to himself.

A few minutes later, he gets up for coffee and rounds the corner to find Kate Mortimer and Harry Percy standing in the corridor, looking angrily at each other. He backs into an alcove, sure they didn’t see him, and listens, staring at a trolley of paperwork someone has dumped to avoid dealing with.

‘-can’t fucking believe you,’ snarls Kate, the menace in her voice sending chills down Poins’ spine, and it’s not even aimed at him. ‘I gave this to you because I thought you’d do it right, not let him swoop in like fucking Superman with that smug grin and end up with everyone worshipping at his feet.’

‘He seemed so fucking useless, I didn’t think-’ he hears Harry reply. The guy doesn’t sound so hot today.

‘That was his whole fucking act, clearly. We could’ve eviscerated him and instead he’s climbed onto the pedestal and kicked down the people who helped him there. The little cunt could’ve been out of politics, but no, you had to let him take the opportunity. He seemed useless? What did I always tell you?’

‘Never trust anybody.’

‘Not even fucking me. Nobody.’ 

Poins rolls his eyes. Kate isn’t half dramatic sometimes. He supposes she knows the power of it, of making people fear the show that comes along with her words, but sometimes it does seem to fall a little flat. Does she really believes that you can’t trust anybody? Maybe, maybe that’s how she got to the top. Maybe that’s the only way to do it.

‘Whatever, Kate. Look, it’s done, you can’t change it without undermining the whole fucking government.’

‘Oh, fuck off. Let’s not have the “what’s done is done” speech, I’ve heard enough of them. Get the fuck out of my sight, I’ve got stuff to do and I don’t want you fucking it up.’

Poins hears her heels against the floor and flattens himself against the wall, begging she won’t find him. She’d probably wring his neck for spying on her. However, she passes by, and a moment later he hears Harry leave too. Thank fuck, he thinks as he leaves his hiding place and goes to find that coffee.

Kate’s words aren’t exactly a complete surprise to him; it’s always been clear that she’s not keen on Hal, but then again, she never seems keen on anybody. If Henry Bolingbroke is the head honcho lion, then Kate Mortimer is the feral wildcat that you mustn’t seem too threatening in front of or she’ll pounce, regardless of who you are. Possibly that makes Hal the kitten who seems innocuous but then leaps up and scratches you in the eye.

The big question is, does he tell Hal? Does he reveal that Kate Mortimer, the person who reputedly told the PM’s senior advisor, Humphrey Gloucester, that if he ignored her again she’d stab his balls to the table with a kitchen knife, wants his career dead in a ditch with the post mortem signed and sealed by nightfall? Hal’s busy being the golden boy, sparkling with the colour of clever lies and scapegoats, and Poins isn’t even sure if he’d take the threat seriously. Anyway, Poins has got to protect his own career, and he’s not certain how to do that right now. Not stirring up shit, that’s for sure.

He’s starting to think that Hal had been planning this for a while, the big heroic move, and that puts him on edge. Who knows what else the guy’s been utilising for his own purposes? Who else, even? Poins isn’t sure he wants to know.


	4. Foul sin, gathering head, shall break into corruption

The insipid tone of his alarm rings out, but Hal is already awake, staring into the darkness of his bedroom and mulling over the day’s tasks. He’d thought that making one of the sharpest career turns in recent history would help him to sleep, but instead his sleeping ability has reached an all time low. At least it gives him more time to work. He slams his alarm off and pulls himself out of bed. The room feels conspicuously spacious, reminding him that it is over a week since he last was in Poins’ flat, since that early morning moment when he decided to put his plan into action. A week’s not long. Not at all.

A week ago, Hal Monmouth was the miraculous hero of the hour. The political sections of the papers ran with fact files about him, asking if anyone should have foreseen this turnaround. Not only had he averted a massive scandal at DIS over the bribery allegations, pinning the blame on people who were either long gone or about to be, but he then continued to boost his popularity by announcing new schemes to get people learning employable skills and giving a speech praising the UK tech industry for its recent successes. It even included jokes, hastily written by Poins and Falstaff, who finally put their ability to gripe at each other to good use, subverting that energy into friendly humour.

The problem is that now, he doesn’t feel like such a hero. He’s still flying high, media-wise, but the cracks are starting to appear. Whilst much of the press has been convinced by his act, there are the odd dissenting voices, the articles asking if it was all a stitch up or if Hal’s actions were a lucky mistake. His own department seem, for the most part, slightly wary, probably aware that he’d sell more of them out if he needed to. He thought that was already political fact, but apparently those at DIS are either more naive or more hopeful than he’d realised.

And Poins? Hal’s trying not to worry about him, trying to ignoring the nagging feeling in his gut that something has gone wrong between them but, like the routine they accidentally entered, they didn’t quite notice it occur. Does Poins suspect that Hal had planned this a little more than he has publicly let on, he wonders, even possibly think that Hal leaked the information himself to start the whole thing off? He didn’t, he just took advantage of the leak once it emerged, but it could be thought, especially by someone who’s seen Hal enough to perhaps suspect there’s something he’s hiding, that he did.

At work, they speak and cooperate and do everything they usually do on a day to day basis. That’s it, though. The odd smirking remark from Poins, before he pulls back slightly, trying to keep his distance Hal thinks. He knows he shouldn’t care, that it should have just been casual, if possibly ill-advised, sex with a work colleague, the same colleague who still has Hal’s suits and his fucking tea in his flat. Poins’ words about trusting no one float back into his mind as he leaves the shower and stands drying his wet hair with a towel. Maybe the guy decided that he didn’t trust Hal enough for any relationship other than strictly work colleagues, now that he might have got the hint that Hal’s a manipulative little shit (Hal’s not afraid to call himself that, because it’s true). Possibly, a tiny voice in his head suggests, Poins had started to trust him more than he wanted, and the whole debacle was just a good excuse to get out whilst he could. Whatever it is, Hal feels he ought to talk to Poins, if only to say ‘fuck you, I actually gave a shit about you’.

-

Hal’s plan to talk to Poins is scuppered the second he walks into the DIS offices. Falstaff rushes over to him, or what counts as rushing to the lazy git, and brandishes a pile of newspapers in front of his face.

‘You’ll want to see these,’ his advisor says.

‘Can you give a brief summary, prepare me for the worst?’

‘A huge mound of shit has fallen on your head.’ Falstaff smirks, and Hal wonders if this is how the guy has stayed in politics so long, through all the scandals: being such an jeering, unscrupulous bastard that nobody wants him on the other side.

‘Anything less poetic?’

‘Hmm, I’ll see.’ Falstaff looks down at a piece of paper, remarkably organised for DIS, then glances up at Hal. ‘Eddie boy made a list for quick reference,’ he says in answer to Hal’s unspoken question. ‘We’ve got two exposés on your debauched city life past at the consulting firm, one of which promises more to come and the other suggests you’re still in their pay, taking bribes to influence the government. Not openly, mind, but it’s there. Then there’s an article about everything DIS has done wrong since you started, two claiming you’re too secretive with your life and finally, an opinion piece saying you’re entitled to have a personal life, but not to hide departmental dealings behind excuses.’

‘How kind,’ Hal mutters. ‘Is that all?’

Poins appears out of nowhere, waving his phone.

‘We’ve got a trickle of tweets appearing, apparently some cocky blogger started the hashtag HonestHal and it’s starting to pick up pace,’ Poins says, then adds, ‘It’s sarcastic.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, can’t they just appreciate that I’ve changed, that I’m sorting shit out in this fucking department,’ he blurts out as an immediate response.

‘They’ll get over it,’ offers Falstaff noncommittally. ‘It’s just the papers.’

Hal isn’t so sure. The whole transformation rests on it being that: a transformation. Not a half-hearted change that people pick away at until there’s little left but the hollow shell of lies and excuses it was built on. He needs to get this back on track before the press have worn away all of his hard work: no Twitter shambles, no digging up every time he’s been drunk since the dawn of time, no trying to link everything in his life to the bribery thing he thought he’d averted.

The next bad omen comes when Kate Mortimer doesn’t turn up. She’s probably busy with the PM or that dick who’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hal tells himself as he receives her only response: a text saying Don’t make it any worse, you smug twat with two kisses afterwards. They don’t even get Harry Percy as a replacement prize, just a vacant gap that their own lower press and communications people try to fill, with Falstaff and Poins wandering around, not being very helpful.

‘What about if we released a statement saying “We’re not that corrupt, in comparison”?’ suggests Poins with a laugh, throwing scrunched up balls of paper at Falstaff every time he turns his back. Hal glares at him. It’s after lunch and all they’ve done is failed to counter the Twitter thing and had a backbench minister ‘accidentally’ let slip that nobody trusts Hal.

‘It’s fine for you, it’s not your life they’re picking apart with a fine-toothed comb of evil,’ snaps Hal. ‘I should make a public statement.’

‘And then Kate’ll murder you? Then again, she’s clearly given up.’

‘Or she’s behind it,’ suggests Falstaff, before finally picking up a ball of paper and chucking it back at Poins. Hal wonders for the millionth time how he ended up with these two.

‘That’s a thought,’ says Poins lightly, but Hal sees something else on his face. Suspicion, perhaps? Guilt?

‘Do we have any proof?’ he asks.

‘It was just a joke,’ protests Falstaff, but Hal’s not looking at him but at Poins, who seems to be hovering with words waiting on his lips.

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I did hear...rumours,’ says Poins finally, ‘that she might not have wanted you to solve the bribery thing.’

‘Good rumours, or the sort Falstaff starts when it’s a slow day here?’

‘Good ones. The sort so good you’d pack ‘em up in a box and send to your mum for Christmas.’

‘My mum’s dead,’ mutters Hal as another paper ball flies out of Falstaff’s hand, misses its target and hits Helen in the face. She glowers and throws it back. The place is a bloody playground. ‘Is anybody doing any fucking work?’

Poins turns round a computer screen and coughs loudly.

‘Here, someone’s got hold of some pictures of you looking like a posh idiot at university.’

‘And?’ That can’t have been difficult, Hal thinks.

‘And they’re saying this is proof you’re an elitist dick who’s screwing the country out of training and apprenticeships because you think they shouldn’t be allowed opportunities, using cash from companies to line your pockets as you do it.’

‘Isn’t that libel? Slander? Something?’

‘It’s very carefully worded, and do you really want an investigation into the whole thing? To find out how much you’ve fucking lied?’

‘Well...no.’

No, what Hal wants is for politics to be the game it should be: running the country on lies because people don’t really want to know the truth of it all. He knows that the internet is a fucking great invention, up there with the wheel and Jaffa Cakes and the gourmet burgers that seem to have overtaken the world, but sometimes he doesn’t half wish for the days when your press bollocking was regular, once or twice a day when the papers went out, not twenty-four seven and in glowing Technicolor.

-

The next day, it gets worse.

Hal wakes up to the discovery that magically overnight half the people in government (and a good few who aren’t) have been sneakily distancing themselves from him, some making roundabout comments about clamping down on sleazy politicians and ensuring the very best people are in the Cabinet (despite none of them actually having the power to change this). A handful of new ‘revelations’ about his time pre-politics emerge, even though Hal’s sure if someone did their job when they first starting writing about him, they’d have found that stuff much earlier. It’s nothing killer on its own - photos from city cocktail nights, hearsay about less than scrupulous dealings, etc. - but together, it all paints a picture.

At DIS, people are finally worried enough that they’re not throwing stationery at each other. If Hal goes down, some of their jobs could be caught in the crossfire. He can’t sit still, pacing between his office and his advisors’ desks constantly, begging for a sudden strike of inspiration, anything that will get him back on track. Poins looks at him worriedly every time Hal approaches, the way you look at someone who’s come down with a sudden illness. It’s not that bad, he wants to yell, but they don’t know that most of what came before was part of the plan, that it could still work out as it was originally meant to, and did, for a short while. He could rise up, beyond this, rather than fall further.

By mid-afternoon, Hal’s starting to think that Falstaff’s joke and Poins’ rumours were right, because Kate still hasn’t given them any better instructions than not to mess it up any further. The other politicians he’s tried ringing to see what’s the word on the governmental corridor have made excuses and hung up quickly. It’s either a false alarm or a drawn out death scene, he decides.

Poins eventually rings the 10 Downing Street Press Office, the haunt of Kate and Harry and their many minions, and gets the equivalent of a prerecorded message from one of said minions: ‘Kate cannot deal with your situation right now, so sit tight and don’t do anything stupid’. Hal translates it as further proof that she’s after him, claiming to be too busy so she can later blame him for doing nothing. He needs another desperate measure, a scapegoat or a well-crafted lie or even, god forbid, a handy bit of the truth. What he also needs is for Poins to stop avoiding him, stop disappearing the moment there’s only the two of them. Hal wants to know what the fuck’s going on, because at the moment it seems like his advisor foresaw that Hal’s solution wouldn’t hold as well as Hal had hoped and got out of any personal connection with the minister before the shit really hit the fan.

At half nine, the building is so quiet Hal’s tempted to get a box of pins from the stationery cupboard and listen to them fall on the floor. The only noise that isn’t him is the occasional sound of typing coming from the main office outside the door. It’s Poins, but Hal doesn’t think that it’s productive typing because whenever he’s gone out to see if he’s got a suggestion, Poins gives him a strained look. Hal’s not sure why the guy’s still here, after everyone else who’s political career isn’t immediately under threat has gone home. A couple of weeks ago, he would have thought it was out of sympathy, out of a desire to help Hal or something similar, but now he thinks it must have something to do with Poins’ sense of self-preservation.

Finally, when the clock reads thirteen minutes past ten, Hal decides there’s nothing he can do here that he can’t do at home with a glass of something alcoholic and his feet up on the leather sofa. He’s read over every article and statement he can find, but currently his plan rests at ‘smile at people and change the subject’ and, as effective as that is in general, it’s not so useful when your life story is splashed across the papers and the internet as apparent proof that you’re unfit to run a government department. There’s always the old ‘leave it and hope it goes away’ option, but he’s not certain his position is stable enough. Leave it for too long and he’ll be getting the call that the PM needs to speak to him; worse, that Humphrey Gloucester’s going to fire him because the PM has better things to do.

He leaves his office and there is Poins still, sitting at his desk and looking at his computer screen.

‘Nothing?’ Hal asks hopefully. Poins shakes his head.

‘Can’t think of anything useful. You can’t deny everything.’

‘Oh well,’ he says, trying to sound cheerful and realising it came out dejected. ‘G’night.’

‘Night,’ mutters Poins vaguely. Hal wonders if there’s something simple he can do to fix this thing between them. Probably not, if he can’t think of a solution to save his career yet.

-

At last, Poins almost says out loud when Hal walks out, his face showing the signs of worry that Poins has never seen before. If nothing else, that proves to him that Hal did not plan this last fall, although he’s been thinking for a while that possibly he planned, or at least didn’t fight, the other mishaps. Just an instinct.

Over the past day, Poins has come to the conclusion that there’s nothing else that can be done, that he can do or Hal can do or even Kate bloody Mortimer can do, apart from his final backup plan. To be more accurate, it’s less of a plan and more of a desperate measure that kept him awake the previous night with fear and the knowledge that once he does it, he can’t go back. He’d call it his crossing the Rubicon, if that wasn’t a journalistic cliché that it pains him to think of. Still, he knows that he’ll do it. He’ll do it to assuage that guilt that’s been stabbing at his stomach ever since the bribery scandal broke and Hal started looking more and more like he had little chance of weathering it all. He’s been avoiding Hal in the hope that the guilt will go away, that Hal will forget that Edward Poins ever had a place in his life, albeit briefly, that was more than just a political advisor in a shoddy department.

Poins picks up his mobile and scrolls through his contacts, looking at the combination of journalists and family and political connections and friends and odd people he used to know. Probably very few of them would expect him to make this play. Those that would, however, know something about him that many don’t: once he’s given you his loyalty, he’s not taking it away.

He clicks on a name and holds the phone to his ear.

‘Hello to you too, Doll,’ he says. In any other circumstance, he would have smiled. ‘Listen, you know I told you that idea I had, if shit got really bad here? Well, I need to do it, I need you to do it.’ A pause. ‘Yes, I’m aware what it means. Yes, I’ve thought it through.’ A longer gap. ‘Oh fuck off, I know what I’m doing. Just do it. Okay? Thanks. Bye.’

-

Hal doesn’t get told this news when he comes into work. His alarm goes off at half six and already his email inbox is flooded with what look like frantic emails, from various contacts and journalists. There’s one from Kate that just says , somewhat ominously, ‘I will see you later’. When one of the emails is from Doll, he has a feeling he knows which newspaper he needs to check, so makes his way to the front door where waiting, probably just pushed through the letter box, are the morning’s papers. He grabs the right one and doesn’t even need to search.

‘Holy fucking shit.’

There’s a small piece on the front page, hidden under the main headlines, which is continued later in the paper. He flicks through, finds it and reads. The second the final word is devoured, he chucks the paper on the floor and rushes off. Ten minutes later, having brushed his teeth and thrown on a suit, he’s almost ready to go. He wants tea but doesn’t want to wait for it to brew, so instead drinks from a carton of orange juice, grabs his folders and laptop, and hurries out the door.

No ministerial car at this time; a taxi it is. By the time he reaches the building which contains Poins’ flat, it is half seven and there’s enough people watching him that he feels he can’t just angrily keep marching until he’s face to face with Poins. He lets himself in the building’s door using the code Poins had given him, casually, just to stop him having to buzz to be let up when he was coming over.

He bashes his fist against Poins’ front door, not sure if he’s knocking or punching it.

‘Hal,’ says Poins when he opens the door, standing there in a half buttoned shirt and suit trousers. He doesn’t look particularly surprised. Hal steps inside, out of courtesy for the other people nearby, and then takes a deep breath. It doesn’t come out as a yell, as he’d planned, but rather as a blunt, almost desperate statement, not much louder than a whisper.

‘You’re the fucking leak.’ Poins nods, and it’s in that moment that Hal realises he’s even leaked this, the leaky bastard. He summons a shout. ‘You leaked the shit that’s ruining my career as we speak.’

Poins looks straight at him. They’re still standing in the hallway, the cramped hallway to match the cramped flat that Hal used to feel affectionately about, like a shitty car, and now feels like it has betrayed him.

‘It was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’ 

Hal stares, stunned.

‘Yes, but you didn’t know that.’ He doesn’t even know how Poins knows now.

‘Well, you weren’t the only one with a plan.’

‘And your plan was to reveal you’re the leak in the department? Why?’

‘It wasn’t.’ 

Poins looks down at the ground, and Hal can feel his anger turning partly to uncertainty. Why did Poins do this? Leak the corruption stuff, and all the other stuff too, the various statistics and details that the papers have lapped up. Even leak the fact he was the leak. It’s so confusing. Poins seems about to speak again, but Hal’s had another realisation.

‘That’s why Doll did the interview, that’s why she’s happy to print the stories we want printing, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not just her,’ says Poins, looking at Hal again. ‘Other people too, couple of mates on different papers. And no, she wanted the interview, along with doing me a favour.’

‘But you’re the fucking leak. And you revealed it. Are you sure you did? Are you sure Doll didn’t just turn, fed up of doing you favours?’

‘I’m sure, because I fucking rang her up last night and told her to.’

‘Why?’ Hal asks again.

‘Because I couldn’t see any other fucking way to sort out this whole mess you’re in. This way, you blame me, you pin all the unwanted shit on me too and you quieten down the media who think you’ve done something. You had no hope otherwise.’

‘What?’ Hal didn’t realise his advisor thought he was in such a terrible position.

‘Kate Mortimer wants you gone, I overheard her telling Harry. She won’t help you because she wants your arse out of politics, because you were no good for too long, Hal. I guess that was all part of your little plan, but it seems to have backfired.’

‘And so you thought you’d save me?’ He questions, brow furrowed. ‘This isn’t some ruse, is it?’

‘No, it’s not. I did it because it was my fucking fault to start off with. And because, well, I couldn’t help any other way.’

‘You know you won’t be able to stay, right?’ 

The fight has gone out of him after Poins’ admission that he revealed his leaking to help Hal. Part of him still wants to yell, but another part is stunned somebody would give enough of a shit to bother with such a move, and yet another, rational bit of his brain is trying to point out that if Hal’s willing to sell out, blame and fire people for his career, a bit of departmental leaking is perhaps not so awful.

‘ ‘course. I’ll get by. It was fine, until your super solution didn’t quite work and you needed an exit strategy. I felt, well, really guilty,’ Poins admits, turning away from Hal partway through the final word. ‘Drink?’

‘Yeah.’ They make their way into the kitchen; Poins makes Hal the tea he needed earlier and gulps down coffee himself (‘don’t want to be sleepy when you’re being fired’ he says with a grin, but Hal doesn’t smile back). Hal taps his fingers on the table and doesn’t know what to say. ‘Hey man, thanks for sacrificing your job and your ambition for mine, I’m still pissed off that you’ve been leaking all the governmental info, but really I’d also like to go back to the having sex thing and whatever else it was, if we could’ doesn’t quite seem to fit, despite covering all the key topics. He decides it’s probably best to start with the first two points, but maybe play down the second because the guy is going to have to lose his job now that it’s all public, or Hal will have no chance of placating the mob who want him to be accused of something. Bribery or malpractice or lying or fucking tax evasion.

In the end, once they’ve finished their morning wake-up drinks and Poins has assembled the rest of his outfit, and just before they leave the flat and both get into the same car (Hal’s prepared excuse is that they were having a serious chat concerning the leak allegations, but he doubts anyone will ask today if they do see them), Hal grabs Poins’ shoulder and quietly says ‘Thanks’, then smiles mutedly and turns away. He feels that balances the line.

-

The whole experience is fairly quick, Poins thinks, in its defence, although it should be have even quicker. It takes all of fifteen minutes of being in the office, after the world’s most confusing start to the day with Hal and his bouncing between anger and awkward almost-gratitude, before in breezes Kate Mortimer with an annoyed expression. Her speed at responding to this development merely proves Poins’ previous allegation that she was avoiding helping Hal on purpose, which would have made him feel more pleased if he didn’t know why she was there. She has no poker face and is already glaring at Poins, seemingly even when she turns away from facing him.

‘Ha-al,’ she calls out, not bothering to look for him. Hal comes over, trying to disguise his scuttle as a dignified walk. Kate steps over to him, as if to have a private word, but then talks even louder than usual. Falstaff looks on with barely concealed glee. ‘I don’t have a say in who you hire as your advisory staff, but I’m here to let you know that if you don’t sack this little leaky bastard, not only will you be out of a job, but so will be that same leaky bastard and the other one, and I’ll spread so many rumours that none of you will ever be employed again. Got it?’ Hal nods, facetiously overenthusiastic, and Poins has to bite back a laugh. It really isn’t the time. ‘Good. I’ve got to return a call, I’ll be back in five to check how you’re doing.’

She walks off and Hal walks over to Poins’ desk with a solemn look on his face.

‘Listen, apparently you’re not allowed to spill departmental secrets to the world, so I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.’

Alright, Poins thinks, if we’re doing this the humourous way, so be it. He claimed to Doll and Hal that he was aware of the consequences, but the moment still hurts.

‘Okay,’ he says and smirks, ‘I was getting bored of it here anyway.’

He fills a cardboard box with the meagre contents of his desk whilst Hal loiters nearby and Falstaff pretends not to be watching. Once done, he hoists up the box and prepares to walk out, head held high because at least he facilitated this. His dignified exit is interrupted, however, by Kate striding back in, face gone from annoyed to utterly furious.

‘Dear god, do you do this on purpose?’ she screams cryptically.

‘I don’t know-’ begins Hal. At first Poins wonders if someone got wind of them coming into work together, before realising that wouldn’t send her into such a fury.

‘Did you fucking read all your press coverage this morning?’

‘Well, I was dealing with one-’ Hal cuts off again, this time in the face of a newspaper being held in front of his face, the same newspaper Poins knows that Doll’s story was in. Poins is torn between getting the hell out of there and waiting to see what the story is, how everyone will react to this mysterious new crisis.

‘Dear fucking god,’ escapes from Hal’s lips as he reads, loud enough for Poins to hear. Suddenly, Kate turns and stares at him, straight down to his soul it feels like.

‘Don’t think you’re going anywhere, Edward. You need to be shouted at before you’re allowed to vacate the building,’ she states, throwing what looks like another copy of the same paper at him. There’s not time to wonder why she’s hoarding them, because he quickly finds what she’s talking about.

Minister in leak sex scandal. Of course, the headline’s inaccurate, but it draws you in, Poins can’t fault that. Actually, it should say something like: Minister revealed through tip off and follow up investigating to be sleeping with the guy just revealed (on the same double page spread, even, but neither he nor Hal noticed that) to be leaking his department’s sensitive information. He wonders who the tip off was, certain it can’t have been Doll. If there’s been an investigation by nosy hacks, he muses as he stands there (forgetting for a moment that he used to be one of those ‘nosy hacks’), it must have been before the leak thing, so it must be have been opportune that the two coincided, or maybe someone was waiting for another story to link it to for maximum effect.

Kate Mortimer coughs, as if bored of waiting for him to catch up so she can scream at him. Poins looks up, whirls the paper across the room towards Hal, Kate, Falstaff and the amassed inquisitive civil servants, and turns to leave.

‘I’ve been kicked out, I don’t have to listen to you bollock me as well,’ he calls out as he finally walks out the door, hoping he sounds more self-confident than he feels.

-

Hal does not resign instantly. He has not been allowed that dignity. Kate Mortimer stalks around his office all day with a couple of her cronies as an entourage (Harry Percy conspicuously absent, Hal notes, wondering what the guy’s done to be out of favour), dealing with the press and giving orders directly to the department without any input from Hal. Falstaff shows off his expertise, sucking up to Kate as the only one of Hal’s advisors left. Hal’s had his phone confiscated and been told to draft the resignation that he’s not allowed to announce yet. It’s like he’s a naughty schoolboy rather than a grown adult in charge of a government department.

He’s tried arguing with Kate (‘It’s all circumstantial evidence, they’ve got nothing’, ‘You idiot, it’s the appearance that counts, not how well they can prove it’), offering her assertions that it’ll die down and no one will care (the ‘as long as Poins is gone’ stays unspoken on his lips), and, finally, desperately scouring his brain for something else to blame or something to divert their attention. It’s difficult to do so when people are focusing on every aspect of your life, however. Eventually, he gives up. He sits in the conference room she’s set up as the mission base and fiddles with loose stationery items. It is a mess. He feels a mess, with the hastily put on suit and unwashed hair.

The wait on career death row is far too long. Too much time to think. To let in that tiny worming piece of doubt that’s questioning if Poins intended for this after all, the bringing Hal down with him. Hal doesn’t think he did, but it’s difficult to tell anybody’s game here. Trusting someone is like handing them a sharpened dagger and hoping they don’t want to use it on you. Maybe it’s naïve, but sometimes it has to happen.

Falstaff comes in and out, jovial in the face of this crisis. Hal would not have bet, when he took the job, that John Falstaff would end up the only one of the three of them left in politics by the end. Kate looks fed up of Falstaff’s existence, but too pleased with the turn of events to actively get annoyed at him. She smirks at Hal every time she walks in, apparently no longer pretending she cares about his position. Kate Mortimer must have seen many politicians come and go. Hal assumes she’ll last long after Henry is finally ousted from the top spot.

Finally, at three minutes to five, Kate walks in with Falstaff bouncing on her heels, clearly aware of what she is about to say.

‘You’re wanted at Number 10. I hope your serious resignation face is ready.’ 

He wants to say, it’s not really a resignation if I’m being kicked out, but he doesn’t. Soon he will be Hal Monmouth, that backbench MP with a dodgy record, unlikely to get reelected next time. If he was allowed to resign from politics altogether he might consider it, but he’s not, so his best option is to refuse to seek reelection next time and in the meantime, just be a minor MP with no hope and no ambition.

Kate gets in the car with him: more opportunity to gloat. Hal stares through the tinted glass and ignores everything she says. At 10 Downing Street, he follows her through the corridors both of them are used to treading, him for Cabinet meetings and her because this is her domain, until they reach her office. There is too much wood panelling and a TV with BBC News 24 playing permanently in the background; it must be hell for the electricity bill and the environment, he thinks as he stands, not quite sure where to go because she didn’t tell him who summoned him. After a few minutes, Humphrey Gloucester turns up: polished smile, young but apparently already going slightly bald. Maybe the stress of dealing with the PM. Hal nods vaguely and follows him. Passed between the grown ups.

In the corridor they pass Henry Bolingbroke, talking to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Every time Hal sees him, he thinks that the man’s looking worse; it wouldn’t surprise him if Henry steps down before the next election.

‘You’re dealing with it, Humphrey?’ Henry asks, pausing his other conversation.

‘Consider it done,’ Gloucester replies. Hal mentally calls him Gloucester because Humphrey is too much of a ridiculous name, although it’s almost irrelevant. Henry looks straight at Hal and then bows his head slightly, as if paying his respects.

‘Just do the right thing,’ the Prime Minister says and then continues on his way. The great send off from the Cabinet: a cryptic, vaguely threatening sentence.

The actual forced resignation is not much more monumental. Gloucester says some tactful phrases, trying to sound neutral, and then Hal goes outside to give a statement to the press. It is all for show, all pointless, because everyone knows he’s been forced out due to attracting enough scandal to fill a whole special feature supplement if a paper wanted to run one. From what he’s gathered during the day, the sex thing has been blown up even further than the leaking thing for Poins, so half the people seem to think that was the reason he was sacked. The news is a mess of the two of them, of how they ruined the Department for Innovation and Skills with rumours and leaking and, to the most fantastical, some kind of sex based deal of immorality. It is quite a way to leave.

Then, he’s in a taxi, leaving frontbench politics and his political ambitions behind as he returns home. His whole rise and fall did not take very long. It’s a harsh game.


	5. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you

It has been one hell of a day. Poins sits on his sofa and stares at the TV screen, where the news is wrapping up its report on the day’s political events. Hal’s departure caught on camera, the statement he makes bland and appeasing: he will step down due to recent controversies, to ensure the effective running of the Department for Innovation and Skills and the continued faith of the British public. Poins eats from a packet of chocolate digestives, with no tie and rolled up shirt sleeves, and puts off the moment when he needs to do something about his life. Earlier, he spoke to Doll on the phone; she told him to just move on and sort his shit out, but gave no specifics because she was busy. She still has a job, after all.

He goes to the kitchen to make a drink, opens the cupboard, and sees Hal’s tea sitting there, the same tea he drank that morning. It is fancy as shit, but it gives Poins another reminder why he’s unemployed. Hal. Their argument that morning, the muted ending as Poins skirted around the truth as much as possible and Hal seemed to give up with his anger, has left an awkward gap that can be left alone or dealt with. His inclination is to go with the former option, to draw a line under everything and go back to journalism, back to desperately hoping for a scoop or something to make his work vital, important. Sleepless nights, painfully clichéd epithets, begging for a few lines of space near the front of the paper.

It’s not exactly progress though. He wants to go back to the news business, to choosing what people think is news and pleading with the editor that yes, the people do need to know about this or that, but that doesn’t mean that he has to pretend he never left. More exactly, it doesn’t mean that he has to pretend Hal never existed. Which, he knows, would be pretty fucking impossible because there are still those odd pieces of Hal, the suits and the tea and the half-finished sudoku lying on the table from weeks ago, lying around the flat like evidence.

Poins brews the kettle and throws one of Hal’s stupid teabags into a mug. Might as well give it another go, he thinks, as bad tea can’t really make the day much worse overall. This time, he adds liberal amounts of milk and sugar, deciding to make Hal’s tea his own way. It is better, sweet and spicy and surprisingly reassuring. Well, he’s got to admit this to Hal now. You try the tea, you’ve got to try the bigger gamble as well.

-

There are a number of ways to deal with your sudden demotion from an actual fucking government position. There’s the continued dignified approach, the returning home and going about your business as normal, soldiering on in an illusion of fortitude. You can go the opposite way, smashing things and drinking neat spirits and screaming abuse at the walls regarding everybody involved in your fall from grace. There’s the sleeping-it-off plan, the collapsing on the bed fully clothed and sleeping, hoping that when you wake up it’ll seem alright. For people with families waiting for them, partners who might offer sympathy sincere or not, there’s the option of company, of telling someone else your side and being reassured that it’ll get better, that it just wasn’t the role for you.

Hal has nobody waiting for him, no desire to take it all with a fake smile nobody else sees, and no real want for sleep or large quantities of alcohol, at least not yet. Fighting off the journalists outside his house took effort, but now that it’s over, he feels surprisingly dead inside. None of it is quite real. He sits on the sofa and stares blankly around, wondering how in a few short weeks he’s gone from man with a plan, a manipulating-the-people plan but a plan, to a man with a career on the way down and a good scandal collection. 

Apparently, when you try to make people underestimate you, it just makes them suspicious and untrusting and unwilling to accept that you’ve changed. Apparently your personal life is directly relevant to this too. He does have to admit, perhaps when your personal life is overlapping with your work life, it might be your own fault.

-

Poins stares up at the house illuminated by the streetlamp; another bland yet expensive place to live in the city. He wants to turn away, but none of his excuses can be used: there are no journalists waiting outside by now because by ten p.m. they’ve probably assumed Hal won’t do anything newsworthy, he got a cab fairly easily (because he’s not going on the tube when he’s been headline news that day), and he can see lights on so Hal must be around. There is no reason to do anything but walk up to the door, ring the bell and hope for the best. A fool’s move, perhaps.

He has never even been this close to where Hal lives. The address he did know, because as one of Hal Monmouth’s advisors, he had to know all the details that might be useful. The place where the press might congregate, should anything go spectacularly wrong. When Hal first arrived at DIS, he and Falstaff used to speculate what their new minister’s home might be like, and their two options were always totally bland and intended be totally inoffensive, or completely crazy and thus never allowed to be seen by anyone. Part of him, despite the fear, wonders what’ll be true. That’s if he gets inside and isn’t barred entry for being part of the whole ruined career thing.

Poins presses the doorbell and thinks how different that is from Hal hammering on his door that morning. Fucking parallels. There’s a long pause, not for suspense but because Hal is clearly checking through the peephole that it’s not a gaggle of journalists here to eviscerate him, then the door starts to open. He gulps. Time to put his neck on the line again, the second time in two days. It’s been a risky twenty four hours, but it’s not over yet.

-

Seeing Poins’ anxious face on his doorstep does not surprise Hal as much as it could have. He knows they have unfinished business, unfinished because he fired Poins, in word if not in deed, and cut off their chances of further conversation, before discovering that it had just got even more complicated. That’s pretty fucking unfinished.

Opening the door, Hal ushers Poins in without a word. They cannot loiter on the doorstep. Poins has never been to his house, he is well aware, and it is probably not the best time to visit. He leads the other guy into the sitting room, hoping that Poins ignores the ready meal packaging and empty Coke cans. It could be worse: at least Hal didn’t go down the heavy drinking route and have to cover up the evidence of that.

‘Sorry about your, y’know...’ says Poins, standing awkwardly instead of sitting down on the leather sofa beside Hal.

‘Resignation,’ fills in Hal with a sardonic grin. They both know the score. ‘It was fine. Kate didn’t even really yell much, just kept me locked up all day before I could leave.’

‘You can see why she succeeds. She plays people well.’

‘So do a lot of people there.’

‘Not like her. You did alright, I guess, but it didn’t quite work out, did it?’

‘The best laid plans.’ Hal shakes his head, whether at the way events turned out or at his worn out phrase, he’s not even sure. Poins chuckles.

‘On that note, Doll is so pissed off she didn’t break the us-fucking story, ‘cause now it looks like she only knew half the details.’

‘Poor little journalists, getting sad that they weren’t the ones to entirely rip apart somebody’s career,’ Hal says with another head shake.

‘Hey, don’t diss ‘em, I was one. I’ll be one again.’

Hal stares at the still-standing guy, it dawning on him that whilst he has lost his Cabinet position, his respect and his hopes in the next election if he doesn’t step down from running, Poins is immediately without a job. He hadn’t quite thought about that.

‘You going back to as before then?’

‘Work-wise, kinda,’ replies Poins, and Hal can now see, in the anxiety and the evasiveness, what Poins is here for.

‘Well,’ he starts, then stands up because he doesn’t want them to be on different levels for this, ‘not work-wise, you could not quite go back to as before.’ Poins laughs and Hal’s heart races, thinking that his suggestion was completely ridiculous.

‘Oh god,’ says Poins, ‘this is as awful as should’ve been expected of us. Fuck it, let’s not go back to before we knew each other, or even before we kinda stalled with seeing each other. Let’s not be a Westminster scandal. Let’s try out being something a little bit more fucking interesting.’

Hal weighs it up: take a personal life leap with the guy he likes, the guy who the whole country knows he’s slept with and who traded his career for a shot at Hal keeping his, or deny the chance because everything else has gone wrong?

‘Fine. But if we ever get to living together, there’s no fucking way I’m moving into your pathetic excuse for a flat. I’ve seen bigger cardboard boxes.’

Poins smiles. ‘Alright. As long as you buy me some of your fancy tea. It’s grown on me.’

And that was how the major political deal of the week was enacted. Hal wondered as he disappeared off to make a couple of mugs of said tea, whether Henry Bolingbroke ever exacted deals using hot drinks. Probably not, but then again, Hal would never be Prime Minister.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically also fulfils another prompt, "Henry IV I & II: Happy Hal/Poins. Let me pretend they're not doomed.", but revealing that would've been a bit of a spoiler.
> 
> Not sure if this was what you had in mind with your prompts, but hopefully it was alright. I couldn't help but think that the whole democracy thing and being held accountable might mess up Hal's plans somewhat.


End file.
